Motor vehicles often comprise a large number of controls that an occupant may wish to interact with while operating the vehicle. Many of the controls may be relevant to driving the vehicle, such as indicator controls and exterior light controls. However, other controls may be provided for accessory systems of the vehicle, such as entertainment systems, navigation systems and climate control systems.
It is often desirable to provide controls for vehicle systems that are within easy reach of a driving position, in order to allow the driver to use the controls without departing from the driving position. This may lead to a large number of controls being provided within a small area of the vehicle. In some cases, in order to provide all of the controls for each of the vehicle systems, it may be necessary for a single control surface to be used to provide control inputs to more than one system of the vehicle.
Additionally, each of the systems may include a display configured to provide information regarding the operation of the system to the driver. It may be desirable to provide such displays within sight of the driver. For example, the displays may be provided on a dashboard of the vehicle in close proximity to one another. This may allow the driver to quickly gain desired information about the operation of any of the vehicle systems from the relevant display.
Providing a large number of controls and/or a large number of displays may undesirably increase the complexity of operating the vehicle and may restrict the driver's ability to quickly obtain desired information regarding the operation of a particular vehicle system. Furthermore, providing the controls and displays may increase clutter around the driver, which may detract from the experience of driving the vehicle.